LHC lawsuit dismissed a second time

Have we heard the last of the particle smasher scare stories? The most recent lawsuit to protest the dangers posed by the Large Hadron Collider at CERN in Geneva, Switzerland, has been dismissed.

On 24 August, a Hawaiian appeals court absolved (pdf) the US Department of Energy, the National Science Foundation and other funding bodies of responsibility for any dire consequences that might result from the particle collider.

"The alleged injury, destruction of the Earth, is in no way attributable to the US government's failure to draft an environmental impact statement," reads the court's decision.

David Harris of Symmetry Magazine described the 3-page decision as "short and sweet" .

"According to the decision, [the plaintiff] failed to show a 'credible threat of harm', and the US government does not control the operation of the LHC and therefore is not the correct party to bring action against."

The appeal was brought by Walter Wagner of Hawaii and Luis Sancho of Spain. In 2008, as the LHC was nearing completion, the pair filed a lawsuit in Hawaii's US District Court against CERN and US contributors to the project demanding that they not operate the LHC until they proved it safe. According to the Telegraph, that suit was dismissed via a 24-page ruling.

The latest ruling will be welcomed by scientists working on the LHC. But for all the bureaucratic headaches caused by the lawsuits, there's a strong argument to be made that Wagner in fact did CERN and the particle physics community a favour by getting the new collider into the public consciousness.

No, this is not the end of the debate. There have been and will continue to be efforts to have collider safety issues re-examined by a disinterested group.

DLH
on August 27, 2010 11:54 PM

Wagner in fact did CERN and the particle physics community a favour...

That is so naive as to be almost laughable.
Bizarre pseudoscience and maniacal conspiracy theories win no converts to science. Instead, they generate enough public scepticism to do irreparable harm to science and to rational thinking in general.
The sad fact is that much of the voting population lack the critical thinking skills to filter out the nonsense, and these lawsuits serve to validate that nonsense. Being conspiracy cranks, those who bring the lawsuits do not expect to win them. Their intent is to force the issue into the public consciousness.

Nico
on August 28, 2010 12:09 AM

Any experiment is potentially dangerous, even if conducted under the most strict and careful parameters. The odds of failure of the LHC can go from minor to catastrophic. That being said, it is not surprising that Wagner and Sancho would try their luck, so if anything is to go wrong, however big this might be, they will be happy to say "I told you so". It is in fact surprising that someone with a legitimate concern regarding the safety of the experiment would bring action against the US government and not the actual designers and operators of the LHC.

Beck
on August 28, 2010 8:13 AM

I wish more people would lay suit on the things they don't understand, fear and care less to read about before choosing to decide in the negative despite researched and publicly available facts on the matter. I can't wait to hear the outcry's when the KStar in S.Korea really starts testing. I'm sure they'll claim star explosions and burning up of the planet to be just as fearful if not moreso than the LHC blackhole joke.

Otto E. Rossler
on August 28, 2010 1:51 PM

Presiding Judge Helen Gillmor took a great responsibility on her shoulders.
Otto E. Rossler, University of Tubingen, Europe

rpenner
on August 28, 2010 4:24 PM

In re: Publicity is Good, McAlpine may be referring to this Nature editorial:

@DLH: Surely there are better ways to understand "the public"'s being worried about a different set of things than us as a lack of critical thinking skills on their part.

Those other people have a life, and in their life they've come up against crap that would leave you and I a gibbering insane mess. That makes us lucky. It may occasionally make us better thinkers, so long as the subject doesn't stray to our own blind spots. For surely you have them, and I have them--bet on that. Humility is an important quality to have when contemplating this.

This voting public has its blind spots too, and one of them is the ceaseless information dump poured on us all every moment of the day. Every single bit has its advocate, whose job it is to make you listen and believe it, rather than to give you the honest truth and gauge its particular importance to you. The truth of CERN is, to the person busy with their life, one more bit in the noise trying to be heard. Is it any wonder that truth is not trusted?

Rodney
on August 28, 2010 7:25 PM

What about the dangers from dihydrogen oxide? Breathing it kills you, Drinking it Kills you, merely being touched by it can unfortunately kill the excessively sensitive. This material is far more deadly than anything the LHC is theoretically capable of creating.

Krishna Pappu
on August 28, 2010 8:29 PM

The fact remains, there will always be skpticism when it comes to the frontiers of science. However the natural progression is inevitable. Even though this bizzare claim gets taken seriously, sooner or later someone would have gotten decent enough proof to carry on with the LHC experiment.

Sheep
on August 28, 2010 10:57 PM

Yeah... who in their right mind is gonna buy Walter's theories of Earth's destruction? CERN's unproven theories are almost fact! Earth's stationary particles have been getting hit by light speed cosmic rays for millions of years and we're still here, so when protons speeding towards each other at the same speed, light speed till they collide in the LHC... um... shouldn't one side of protons be stationary? Whatever... I trust these physicist! If they say their unproven theories of no destruction is correct, I believe them!

"At every stage of understanding the universe better, the benefits to civilisation have been immeasurable. None of those big leaps were made with us knowing what was going to happen."
- Brian Cox

They even have a sense of humor! I love this Rockstar!

Bob Johnson
on August 29, 2010 12:17 AM

The Lady or the Tiger.
I don't think that this is so much about "pseudoscience" as about attempting to control potential risk. Particle physicists seem to be deeply divided about the theories underpinning energetic sub-atomic particle collisions, Hawking radiation etc as other everyday people are about many common issues. The fact of the matter is is that if the Directors at CERN knew what was going to happen when the LHC is fired up then why build it in the first place? Experimental means exactly only that.
Question:
Is this a door that HAS to be opened, or is it a door that scientists only WANT to open.

Don't crack open the Champagne yet - I'm going to sue them for not destroying the Earth.

Dimitris
on August 30, 2010 1:10 AM

Newsflash for our American friends: American courts and legislation don't have global jurisdiction and can't force their will on international issues. The CERN is a European organisation, well outside the reach of US law.

The Doctor
on August 30, 2010 5:12 AM

Relax. Take a deep breath. The general public is smarter than that. They know that Y2K was a dud, they know the predicted Raptures et al. have fizzled like a damp squib, the Second Coming is old news, and we’re all (not) holding our breath for the end of the Mayan Calendar in 2012.

Most people just laugh and shake their head when they hear “The End Is Nigh” from kooks and doomsday cultists.

Terence Hale
on August 30, 2010 6:54 PM

Hi,
LHC lawsuit dismissed a second time. Such experiments that give rice for concern should face
a democratic investigation. Who owns the world ?
Regards Dr. Terence Hale

Ben Taylor
on August 31, 2010 3:48 PM

Dr. Hale, there is no reason for concern, as a basic understanding of science will tell you. The conditions in the LHC have been generated trillions upon trillions of times for the past four a half billion years on Earth due to cosmic rays. I can show you a back of the envelope calculation if you like. The only difference is that in the LHC we have detectors to show us what's going on. The fact that we exist is proof that the LHC is safe.
In answer to your question, nobody owns the world, and certainly not the mob.

Traian Anghel
on September 1, 2010 6:37 AM

In no way could democracy decide what happens to the LHC in my opinion. This would mean going back to the ages where the church prohibited doing science.

Robert Houston
on September 2, 2010 5:12 AM

All can agree that CERN has made great contributions to modern society. Notable among these (and not necessarily in this order) are the World Wide Web and the "Large Hadron Rap" - the terrific music video created there by writer Kate McAlpine.

Not all scientists agree, however, that the LHC is safe, and in two large Internet polls nearly 2/3rds of the public voted to stop it. As with civilian control of the military, there should be public oversight and regulation of large high-tech projects. CERN should not be allowed to act as an authoritarian Church,

The modest request of the Wagner/Sancho legal appeal was that in funding CERN an environmental impact study be implemented by the Dept. of Energy, as required by National Environmental Protection Act. The judges' contention that to have "standing" he and others must already be killed by an LHC catastrophe, or prove it a certainty, in effect nullifies NEPA which was meant to prevent disasters. The ruling is a miscarriage of justice.

Oji
on September 2, 2010 12:46 PM

@Robert Houston

Can you name one scientist who thinks the LHC is not safe - a real scientist, preferably a physicist. Not some crank who calls themselves a scientist.

An "internet poll", eh? I wonder how seriously we should take those. What were the questions: "should the LHC be allowed to destroy the world, yes or no". And what sort of web site? Were they perhaps by/for the idiots who believe this sort of nonsense. I'll stick with the representative democracy we already have, thanks.

And they didn't have to show that the threat of harm was a "certainty"; just that it had some possibility of happening.

Will you kindly post my comment? It has now been with you 14 hrs. I have received no email notification to confirm. My email for this purpose is newscientist@atextgenie.com

AL

This the Comment:

AL
newscientist@textgenie.org
Sept 3 Friday 12.30 am

I agree with Houston. There is no need for a knee jerk, mainstream fawning response to this news. The fact remains that the LHC is another giant step into the unknown, exciting in its potential but also according to some respectable analysis potentially threatening, and at the minimum should be reviewed by outside analysts to ensure that all possible safety measures have been taken. This has not occurred. Plaga's paper has not been rebutted (after an initial attempt foundered in an embarrassing mistake on the part of CERN apologists), and indeed it is doubtful if anybody responsible has read it properly. Meanwhile we have the fatuous reassurance that cosmic rays have been bombarding the moon and Earth for aeons with no noticeable effect. This is know to all as the Cosmic Ray 1 argument, and was dismissed eight years ago by Martin Rees. Now we have commenters on Web threads as above peddling it without any apparent knowledge of its inapplicability. Not only them, either - I have been publicly served up the Cosmic Ray 1 nonsense by prominent physicists in public twice in recent months, only for them to make a hasty retreat and switch to the Cosmic Ray 2 argument when they find out than one knows it has been dispensed with long ago. Obviously all physicists support this venture both personally and professionally, but lets not dismiss the need to review just what safety measures might be undertaken just because a very old judge imagines there cannot possibly be any danger, because it is all in the hands of the experts. Society repeatedly learns decade by decade that experts need oversight.

Science isn't done by polls or uninformed opinions.
Science is done by testing ideas against all the observations of the physical universe.

Wagner was doomed to eventually lose, because observation refutes his claims that possible collider products are dangerous. It is commonly claimed that you can't prove a negative, but you can present damning evidence of a negative if you work out the consequences of an idea being hypothetically true and then conduct a meticulous search for those consequences.

This is what makes Giddings and Mangano (2008) so effective.

By Anthony L
on September 5, 2010 5:14 PM

I agree with Houston. There is no need for a mainstream fawning response to this news. The fact remains that the LHC is another giant step into the unknown, exciting in its potential but also according to some respectable analysis potentially threatening, and at the minimum should be reviewed by outside analysts to ensure that all possible safety measures have been taken.

This has not occurred. Physicist Rainer Plaga's paper has not been rebutted (after an initial attempt foundered in an embarrassing mistake on the part of CERN apologists), and indeed it is doubtful if anybody responsible has read it properly. Meanwhile we have the constant reassurance that cosmic rays have been bombarding the moon and Earth for aeons with no noticeable effect. This is known as the Cosmic Ray 1 argument, and was dismissed as invalid as long as seven years ago by astronomer Martin Rees in his frank book "Our Final Hour".

Now we have commenters on Web threads still offering it. Not only here, either - I have been publicly served up the Cosmic Ray 1 error by prominent physicists in public twice in recent months, only for them to make a hasty retreat and switch to the equally flawed Cosmic Ray 2 argument by Giddings and Mangano (that megadense neutron and white dwarf stars prove slowed mBHs or strangelets produced by cosmic ray collision are harmless) once they find out that one knows Cosmic Ray 1 is invalid.

Cosmic Ray 2 seems now invalid too, although it is the only safety argument left for CERN PR at the moment. Neutron stars are now thought to be made up of strange matter, hardly a good omen for the fate of the Earth if strangelets get produced by the LHC at a rapid rate, and some of them have negative charge as currently theorized.

Obviously nearly all physicists will support this exciting venture both personally and professionally, but we should not dismiss the need to review just what safety measures might be undertaken just because a very old judge imagines there cannot possibly be any danger, because it is all in the hands of the experts. Society repeatedly learns decade by decade that experts need public oversight, an issue that scienceguardian.com has explored for six years. The stakes in this case are the highest ever.

By Robert Houston
on September 8, 2010 3:52 AM

It's not over yet. An update at MSNBC Cosmic Log indicates that the plaintiffs will request a review by the full 9th Circuit Court of Appeals.

A comment above equates "the conditions in the LHC" with those "generated...on Earth due to cosmic rays." But CERN's public safety report now acknowledges that "collisions at the LHC differ from cosmic-ray collisions with astronomical bodies like the earth" (Par. 7). Regarding neutral micro black holes, it admits, "Those produced by cosmic rays would pass harmlessly though the Earth into space, whereas those produced by the LHC could remain on Earth."

The cosmic ray argument was shifted in 2008 to dense stars such as neutron stars, but these are protected by powerful magnetic fields and believed to contain strange matter, the feared outcome for Earth of strangelet production at the LHC.

By Anthony L
on September 8, 2010 4:41 AM

I( agree with Houston. Another great contribution CERN made was the early invention of the touch screen. But this dismissal is a setback for rationality. The LHC is a giant step into the unknown - no one claims to know what we will actually encounter. Renee Paga's paper predicting potential catastrophe is unanswered (after the initial embarrassment where Giddings and Mangano mistook the wrong equation in their initial rebuttal). Time and again we find that experts need outside review when risking the public interest (BP anyone?). Obviously we need oversight to ensure all possible safety measures are in place. The real naivete lies in thinking we don't.

By Anthony L
on September 8, 2010 4:59 AM

I agree with Houston. Another great contribution CERN made was the early invention of the touch screen. But this dismissal is a setback for rationality. The LHC is a giant step into the unknown - no one claims to know what we will actually encounter. Renee Plaga's paper predicting potential catastrophe is unanswered (after the initial embarrassment where Giddings and Mangano mistook the wrong equation in their initial rebuttal). Time and again we find that experts need outside review when risking the public interest (BP anyone?). Obviously we need oversight to ensure all possible safety measures are in place. The real naivete lies in thinking we don't.

By Anthony L
on September 9, 2010 5:51 AM

Sorry, the name is of course Rainer Plaga, and the paper referred to is at http://arxiv.org/abs/0808.1415v3, where the mistaken rebuttal is described in an Appendix and safety measures are suggested. Given the sorry record to date of theoretical arguments claiming that continual collider expansion to be safe (over the years they have been continually replaced as inadequate) it seems that all who read Plaga's paper might conclude as he does that present arguments are inadequate too. One does not have to be a specialist to follow it.